Hey Google – UP YOURS!

After reading this story, I have removed the Google toolbar and all links to Google, and closed my GMail account. As far as I’m concerned, I hope this hideous company goes out of business.

Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt, is not only a high-order douchebag, but also a sanctimonious asswipe to boot. As evidence of this, here are some of his comments on some of the widely-panned and nefarious Google activities that have recently come to light:

Addressed criticisms of Google’s stance on privacy by saying, “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”

Claimed people want Google to “tell them what they should be doing next.”

Said of Google, “We know where you are. We know where you’ve been. We can more or less know what you’re thinking about.”

Said this: “One day we had a conversation where we figured we could just try to predict the stock market. And then we decided it was illegal. So we stopped doing that.”

Interestingly, CNN has since edited that quote out of Schmidt’s segment. Did Google ask CNN to remove it? Who knows. Perhaps the company has finally realized that Schmidt’s penchant for indulging in this sort of pedantic dorkery doesn’t do much for its public image.

Freaking people out with asinine power-tripping pronouncements might be great fun for Schmidt, but it isn’t a wise PR strategy, particularly when Google is a company about which the public and government are increasingly concerned.

So if you don’t like having photos of your house shown on a world wide map and your wireless network data stolen, you can “just move?” How about I toss a spike strip or scatter a box of roofing nails in the street the next time I see one of your data stealing cars coming? Too bad you didn’t say this on a real news program instead of the lowest rated primetime cable show.